Fox news guest tells parents: “Beat kids with love”

Earlier this week a guest on Fox News basically said that there’s nothing wrong with parents physically abusing their kids as long as it’s done out of love.

Bill Cunningham thinks parents should beat their kids with love.

“I say beat kids appropriately and with love,” shouted out Bill Cunningham, a nationally syndicated conservative radio talk show host.

We can blame this hogwash on Jessica Beagley, aka Hot Sauce Mom, an Alaskan mother who poured hot sauce into the mouth of her adopted 7-year-old Russian son and was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse on Tuesday. The video of the 37-year-old mother punishing her kid aired on “Dr. Phil” and has led news anchors all over the country to talk about what constitutes child abuse–and ask people such as Cunningham what they think about Beagley’s conviction. Is this mom really a child abuser?

Cunningham criticized the state for getting involved in how parents discipline their children. “Because the state is so involved in this, it is one of the reasons, of many, why children today are out of control,” Cunningham argued. Parents are afraid to discipline their children because prosecutors may lock them up and throw away the key.”

Cunningham’s mother stuck Camay soap in his mouth and made him eat it until bubbles came out of his nose and chased him around the house with a ping-pong paddle. He questions why parents are now being convicted for similarly punishing their kids. “Now if that was videotaped what would have happened to my mother?” Cunningham asked.

Fox asked an expert with an opposing view to weigh in on the matter. New York prosecutor Anna Sigga Nicolazzi said, “It’s a question of degree…All you have to do is watch that video and you know that it’s wrong.”

Cunningham admitted that Beagley never should have mailed the video into Dr. Phil. “The only thing that mother did wrong was send the video to Dr. Phil.”